Compiling kernels on demand, shaders that introduce a big chunk of GPU kernel code will not be included in the initial kernel compilation. The kernel compilation is triggered when such a shader is added.

Scenes are now cached when animations are rendered to the Picture Viewer.

New Reload Scene per Frame option to enforce R19 behavior

General performance enhancements

Physical Renderer

Improved progressive rendering performance

Materials

General

Immediate low-resolution baking for Viewport

Improved shader / material baking for the Viewport

Updated Material previews

Updated scene setup

Several new scenes

MoGraph Beat Shader now accepts float values for BPM

New node-based materials

Over 140 nodes available

Projection nodes can be visualized in the Viewport

Node networks can be turned into material assets

Node based Materials can be edited in the Node Editor, Material Editor and Attributes Manager

New Node Editor based on new UI framework

Attributes Area, displaying the parameters of the selected nodes

A specialized version of the Attribute Manager

New connector element showing dependencies within the shading/rendering context

The Connector context menu allows to:

Connect Nodes

Textures

Load Textures

Replace Nodes

Insert Converters

Copy

Paste (Link)

Paste (Duplicate)

Remove

Mute Ports

Propagate Ports

Basic tab

Name

Asset Version dropdown shows the different versions of a node (if available)

Custom Node color

Inputs tab

The input attributes of the selected node

Nodes can have a dynamic number of inputs (e.g., the gradient can have a variable number of Knots)

The command Show Sub-channels can switch the layout to also show sub-channels of a parameter (e.g., Color.R, Color.G, Color.B, Color.A for "Color")

Context tab

Enables users to replace the context of many Nodes, e.g., to change the UV mapping for this node.

Asset area

Lists all available assets provided by MAXON or stored by the user

The asset list can be filtered by name and keywords

A keyword filter can set certain parameters in a node (e.g., a search for "Buya" will show a Basic Noise Node with Buya set as the Noise type)